RPT-French banker Guy de Rothschild dies aged 98

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PARIS, June 14 Baron Guy de Rothschild, the
French banker who carried one of the most famous names in
European finance and helped rebuild his family's fortunes after
World War Two, has died aged 98, according to a notice in the
daily Le Figaro.

Head of the French branch of a family with more money than
many countries, Rothschild counted political leaders among his
friends, and his personal fortunes at times collided with events
that marked the 20th century.

Fleeing France as a Jew during World War Two, he joined the
Free French before returning to rebuild the house of Rothschild
[ROT.UL].

He left again in 1982 after the Socialist government
nationalised his bank. But three years later he put bitterness
aside and returned from New York to the land of his birth.

"I went to America because we had been thrown out of the
business world in France," the baron told Reuters after his
return, saying he did not want the French Rothschilds to become
outsiders. "Now everyone knows we count as much as our English
cousins."

The fourth-generation Rothschild also said it was time for
him to return to his roots.

Born in Paris on May 21, 1909, Baron Guy Edouard Alphonse
Paul de Rothschild spent a good part of his childhood at a
family castle so sumptuous it prompted one European monarch to
exclaim: "A king couldn't afford this. Only a Rothschild could".

He joined the family bank, Rothschild Freres, at the age of
22 and obtained a senior position in the family's extensive
railroad holdings two years later.

Trained as a cavalry officer, Rothschild was mobilised in
1940 and decorated for bravery for leading a squadron under
devastating German fire in the days before France's defeat.

He escaped to New York in 1941 after the Vichy government of
Marshal Philippe Petain confiscated the family's fortune and
stripped his relatives of their citizenship. He later went to
London to serve under General Charles de Gaulle's Free French.

After the war, the family rebuilt its prosperity in the
banking world and expanded into other areas. Guy, as the elder
son of his generation, took over the Rothschild bank.

He became close friends with Georges Pompidou, who served as
the bank's director before becoming president of France.

Blue-eyed, debonair and charming, the baron entertained
guests ranging from surrealist Salvador Dali to opera diva Maria
Callas, from designer Yves St Laurent to Princess Grace of
Monaco, at opulent balls at the restored family castle.

One of the world's leading horse breeders, he spent much
time at his Normandy estate, where he kept a stud farm.

By 1980, the French Rothschilds employed 2,000 people and
controlled industrial interests with an annual turnover of some
26 billion francs (then $5 billion).

On May 21, 1981 -- Guy's 72nd birthday -- Socialist Francois
Mitterrand became president of France and before the year's end
had fulfilled a campaign promise to nationalise private banks.

"Of the House of Rothschild there will remain a few odd
pieces, maybe nothing," the baron wrote at the time in a
scathing letter to the newspaper Le Monde. "A Jew under Petain,
a pariah under Mitterrand -- for me it's enough."

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